Russo-Polish War 1654-67

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Thanks Paul

[The_Wrong_Khovanskiy]

An unexpected update, I have painted and based another addition to the Russian army - the hussars!
I was a bit confused in the original post when I referred to lancers, I should have called them hussars. Both the hussars and the lancers had an identical combat function, there were some minor differences between them.





The story of Russian hussars goes back to the 1630s with the first army reforms in Russia in preparation to the Smolensk War against Poland. Russia attempted to imitate the Polish hussars. They were dressed up in very similar armour and weapons, even the long and hollow lances, and they were made up of Russian Orthodox Poles and Lithuanians, anyone that had something to do with the original hussars. They had some action in the Smolensk War, but not much is known about them afterwards until 1654 when they once again saw action against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They evidently haven't done very well, so they were reformed into reiters.
There was a resurgence in hussars in 1660 when Ivan Andreyevich Khovanskiy, the commander of the Novgorod regiment, in order to improve combat ability and morale of his troops after a crushing defeat at Polonka that year, selected the best reiters (out of them he picked only the Russian nobility, not volunteers or cossacks reformed into reiters) and named them hussars. By 1661 they were given hussar armour and lances, but their armament could sometimes vary as they could also wear armour identical to those of reiters. With both the earlier hussars and the resurged ones, there was the attempt to recreate the social standing of the Polish hussars, which were the elite of Polish society. That is why it was necessary for Khovanskiy's hussars to be exclusively nobility. While the Russian hussars were not steeped in long tradition like that of the Polish hussars, their battlefield prowess and social standing had indeed earned them a similar respect from Russian society. They fought well, were armed, armoured and trained well, and they were paid well.

The lancers date back to 1658 in southern Russia (the Belgorod regiment, to be precise, once again, a regional-administrative unit). They used lances and pistols and their armour was identical to that of the reiters. The main difference between hussars and lancers was the social make-up, as the lancers, unlike hussars, could take in reiters of lower classes like urban cossacks, and even infantrymen. Because my army is modelled after Khovanskiy's Novgorod force post 1660, these ones are hussars and not lancers.
Both the hussars and the lancers had an identical battlefield use. Reiters softened up the enemy with their firepower, then hussars and lancers charged in. Lancers were also usually divided up and posted to reiter regiments, making up a third of their reiter regiment. The hussars tended to serve together as a regiment, and they remained in service way into the Great Northern War (wink wink, nudge nudge. Actually, all the Russian troops I mentioned here were used in the earlier stages of GNW, so that's a very big wink wink and nudge nudge).

I hope I got that right, if anyone knows better, please correct me.

[Steve J]

Another nice unit and historical background too .

[The_Wrong_Khovanskiy]

Another nice unit and historical background too .

thanks!
I'm actually running through sources right now and quickly editing the text to be as accurate as possible.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Nice

[Techno II]

Good stuff ! 

Cheers - Phil.

[goat major]

That's a nice looking unit

[The_Wrong_Khovanskiy]

Nice

Good stuff ! 

Cheers - Phil.

That's a nice looking unit

Thanks everyone!

[cudders]

Very nice mate 

Cudders

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Good work

[The_Wrong_Khovanskiy]

Good work

Very nice mate 

Cudders

thanks guys!

[The_Wrong_Khovanskiy]

Hello again. I'm busy with assignments and I really can't do much for a while. For now I'll post some Polish-Lithuanian pancerni for now. I did them a few weeks ago and added snow yesterday. The snow is baking soda, PVA glue and white paint. I hope I got the proportions right and it won't degenerate into stinking sludge after a few years.





I tried to make them colourful. Sorry there's no historical info on them today, I'm absolutely swamped.


Pancerni facing off Russian reiters, which I also snowed.

[mmcv]

Looking great!

[Techno II]

What Matthew said !! 

Cheers - Phil.

[Steve J]

Another great unit .